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After over a decade of bringing you the latest Diablo news and builds, DiabloFans will be shutting down on March 21st, 2019.On this date, we will archive the site in an effort to preserve the history. Thanks for your patronage throughout the years.

I agree, plvls is not at a good place right now, it's mainly the only thing keeping players to the game atm, well those few that are competitive, but it's not really helping the game as a whole. if you don't have 10 hours a day to farm, you can't be competitive, it's not possible. You need to be same plvl as those guys, farm grifts 24/7, get those 1% gem upgrades, get those 1% item upgrades. It what makes a HUGE difference in the long run, someone who has a job, likes to play another game too etc has a hard time just making it into the leaderboards cause he isn't playing as much as those players that are farming 24/7. And that shouldn't be the case, you should be able to play half as much as the highest player, and yet be competitive and be able to beat him on leaderboards. But there should also be other factors for the longtivity of the game, but something that isn't as much game changing as it is now.

I just hope Blizzard actually does realize this and adresses this in future patches/expansion.

It's gonna depends on your type of farming, efficient fast farming T6/lower grifts(I was doing mid 40s easily) you'd want to go with bul kathos weapons. But going for high end grifts you'll be using IK weapon. Even if you go with 6p wastes set. Since 4p ik is just too good to give up on, especially with the bracers.

There's no point in clearing the regular Rift after killing the Rift Guardian is there? Instead of clearing it, wouldn't you be better off just starting a new one?

I usually only continue after RG if I get a good map, chest maps etc. I leave asap if I see a spider cave or realm of the banished rift map. There's a few maps i just hate and rather just start a new rift, but I prefer to continue through the rift till the end, but only do that if I get a map that I like.

Also noticed that after I re-rolled barb after playing a monk, I chose to clear more maps on the barb then I would with the monk cause many maps I couldn't be bothered with on my monk I don't mind doing with my barb. Just personally preference really, I guess you should just do what you want. I think no matter what you do, exit after the rift guardian, or continue going through it's all gonna be quite equal when it comes to legendary and blood shards, since you can encounter an blood thief goblin and that's 300 shards(3 rifts worth of shards). And I encounter those goblins quite frequently, at least frequently enough. Also, who knows if you find the item you really want if you decided to actually continue after the RG, maybe a Furnace or whatever you're looking for might drop in 1-2 levels after RG, never know.

having more stash space is an advantage? you mean it's a competitive advantage? lol

See, this is what I mean: people have entirely different opinions on this issue, and I think there are good arguments to be made on both sides. If I have more stash space than you, and we both like to play a lot of characters, I don't have to make as many choices as you do about when to salvage gear that I might otherwise want to keep. I can have a couple different gear sets/combos for each character if I want, depending on how I play them. To me, that is an advantage, however slight it may seem to you. Inventory management is not nearly as important in D3 as it was in D2, but it is still an element of the game. I can, however, totally understand how others see this as merely a "quality of life" improvement, and not a gameplay advantage, hence my previous post.

(By the way though, why shouldn't every player's "quality of life" improve without having to pay? Cosmetics aren't quality of life, but I feel that if QoL improvements [like stash space and character slots] come to the game, they should be part of free content patches or part of a flat-payment expansion, as they have been in the past.)

Well, if you're filling up 5 stash spaces, and since I doubt you play more then 6 character, and 15 slots exist. That means you can make 9 mules. And If you're filling up all that, I'm pretty sure you can easily gain 50% of the space back by wasting 25 minutes going through useless items you have no use for, or you're doing it wrong. Cause if you can fill that all up and you actually want it, then even 20 more stash spaces wont help you. I usually play all the classes my self, mainly play 2 of them as mains but I like to jump on other classes to play for fun. I hoard potential items, I have a hard time filling my stash, and when I do I make 2-3 mules. No one will be gaining an advantage over others, I mean I don't think useless item hoarding is a competition someone participates in, but I might be wrong. So yeah, if you want the extra 1, 2 or maybe 3-4 extra stash spaces, you could probably get them for cheap, and look at the bright side. That money might actually allow the diablo 3 team to make the game better and bring more content and updates.

nope. paying for cosmetics is awesome. paying for stash space is less awesome because everyone should get more stash space for free. paying for BOOSTS? thats pay to win and a huge NOPE

paragon has little to do with how high you can go in GRs

lol no. once you break the plvl 800 barrier and every point goes into mainstat 10/20/30 lvl CAN make a difference! when it comes to very high gr's, even little movement/placement mistakes CAN ruin your dream rift. this little extra dmg CAN save your butt... you see it in real life also: look at professional (competitive) boxers for example. every calory too much or too little, every change in their daily training routine can cost them the win, so is with plvl points

tl;dr: every plvl point matters and is gamechanging in the long run

Fractions of fractions of percent DPS actually matter exponentially less than a well-rolled rift. 150 mainstat on 15000 mainstat is a tenth of a percent. For that to matter you need to be finishing rifts within moments of the timer running out.

So no. It doesn't really make a difference.

On the other hand it's a terrible practice in its own right. Which is why it's on Asian servers where that kind of stuff is expected. In the future? The American playerbase is much less likely to buy into the system so it won't present any real profit opportunities.

And that 150 main stat on top of 15.000, which is not tenth of a percentage, but actually 1%. And 1% more main stat is 1% more damage. And 1% more damage can mean, instead of failing a rift with 9 second overtime, you succeed the rift. If it was a tenth of a percentage, it would mean if you fail a rift by 1 second, you would've succeeded with that 0.1% main stat. I have personally been in a greater rift I managed to beat with 1 second left, also been in one I missed 1-2 seconds to succeed. I bet many people who progress have missed 1-2 seconds of reaching top 10, or even top 1. So, a perfect rolled rift can matter. But, it doesn't mean you'll succeed a perfect rolled rift, getting that extra few stats can actually help you succeed the perfect rolled rift. And It might even end up being the reason for someone to claim the first place at the end of the season.

Just an example of what that extra 1% main stat can actually help someone. Doesn't mean it will, but it can, and probably will for someone. Weather they'll be reaching top 1, top 10, top 100, or just reaching the leaderboards/personal best.

nope. paying for cosmetics is awesome. paying for stash space is less awesome because everyone should get more stash space for free. paying for BOOSTS? thats pay to win and a huge NOPE

paragon has little to do with how high you can go in GRs

Wrong, paragon has a HUGE factor in your character strength and survivability.

Someone might attempt to reach top 1 in greater rifts, but fails to kill the rift guardian in time, missing 2 second to succeed. Now if that player would be just a little bit higher paragon level he might've succeeded. So he failed the rift he would've succeeded if he was higher para level.

Also Paragon leveling is a competition to many people, hundreds of players actually. To be rank 1 world, EU, US, Asia etc etc. To be rank 1 at the end of the season, first to reach 1500 or 2000 para levels. And it forces them to buy it, so it's making it a pay to win, cause they had to pay, to win what they wanted.

If it would've been an xp boost for 1-70, that wouldn't be as huge, but still lame. You only have to level once 1-70, it usually takes 3-5 hours for those speed leveling. Technically it would be an unfair advantage if you could but 100% xp boost, cause it would mean you would be 2 times faster to reach 70 in seasons, thus getting a 2-4 hours head start of everyone. Not gonna matter at all for end game, but would for some seasonal conquests etcetc, people might be going for. So that could be looked as pay to win too. Cause if someone wanted to be first to complete 35 greater rift conquest for example, or be top 10 even, he would have to buy the xp boost.

It's not gonna give anyone an advantage over anyone. Cause I doubt Blizzard want's Diablo 3 to become a pay to win game, I think they'll add cosmetic/vanity items and maybe something cool. I mean it's probably something that's not gonna be expensive if you need that extra stash space, or character slots. Or want to get that cool transmog or those cool wing. Like 5-10$ I'd assume.

But here´s what people fail to understand:

Developing a game and patches/expansions requires programmer, designers etcetc. And when a game doesn't make that much money(like diablo 3) they have a small team of people making the content, and putting out content at the speed that is possible. But with microtransactions, they will have more money to make more content, and more content is better, right?

So in a sense, microtransactions isn't a content on it's own, but might end up helping the game get more content and patches. As well as bigger expansions with more features. So technically we should get more content cause of it. Unless Activision goes "Hey, fuck Diablo 3, we're taking all the money. I want to buy a new yacht!" or whatever. But that shouldn't be the case.

If they use microtransactions to make even more content and updates, there will be more people coming to the game, and more people buying the expansions. And that means more money for them.

All exploits are based on T6 difficulty. In original game T1-T6 is locked before you get a level 60 character. For some strange reason this rule does not apply to Seasons. In fact, no one will ever use T6 for legit leveling of their first character. It is used for exploits or for being boosted (it's really fine if you need to level your first seasonal character without any boost). Also, there can be some boss-runners on T2-T4, though it seems to be a bad way of leveling. So, there is no sane reason to leave Torments unlocked to the fresh seasonal characters.

Exactly, I think it would be fine if they locked it till 60, cause imo, unless really lucky with drops and crafting 60 weps with reduced lvl req at 45-50, you're not going into torment for leveling, even in a team. At 60+, I can see some classes going into t1 or mostly t2 with 61 gear and gems, maybe some nice rerolls and legendaries. Also depends on the class I guess, some are more leveling friendly then others when it comes to efficiency. But leveling solo, or at a fast pace legit, i think expert or at most master will be just enough. Though I assume most will be leveling on hard. For more XP/H because of efficiency,

Personally, even though I hate leveling, but I think first seasonal character should be leveled legit, sure people might find clever ways to level, like certain bounties etc. But using exploits and playing in a difficulty you can't handle, but because some quest doesn't require much effort at t6, that's not fun. And gives them advantages over others, for racing to 70, conquests etc. Cause they'll reach 70 2, 3 or even upto 4 hours faster then majority of players giving them a huge advantage.

I personally know the leveling exploits, but I'm not gonna do them. I used miner's gold and miser's will back when season 1 started, but it was no way a fun experience, do the same bounty over and over for 3-5 hours. What I personally like is that when leveling, you use different builds then you would ever use at 70, that are actually efficient and fun while leveling due to lack of required item you use at 70 for farming or locked runes you haven't unlocked etc etc.

I'm saying you could have +Holy damage but no +Lightning Damage which could account for the major part of that discrepancy. Then you factor in that the per-hit damage is going to be a maximum of roughly 40% of the Smite hits, split over two visible ticks (20% of the smite damage).

So if you have a 2000% damage smite, the hits assuming you have no +% holy damage messing up the calculation, deal 34.4mil at max. However if you have, for example, +60% holy damage it's actually 21.5mil. And if you assume half second tics that's a max displayed value of 10.75mil. Course that's assuming those large smite hits are done without crits.

So. Do you have +Holy Damage? Is your Mirinae above level 1? Are you sure those damage values are without critting?

I have 18% holy, I know that it's making it smite for a lot more, but I'm talking about the number difference is so huge between the smite gem and the lightning one, it feels like the lightning gems is 260% instead of 860%. My smite gem is at 3080% currently, which is 3.5 more then the lightning gem, but is doing 20 times more damage.

Like I said, it could easily be a damage type discrepancy. Without knowing what you're using it's essentially impossible to tell, and just saying "it should according to my calculations" doesn't help in either way.

Well last time I checked, 500% of any elemental type does the same amount of damage, unless you add more % elemental damage to that type. I.e 20% more holy damage on neck should make that elemental type deal more damage then the fire/lightning etc. But pure 500% of that elemental type should still deal the same damage, right?

Edit: Didn't see your precious message, but I have 18% holy damage, which of course boosts my smite gem slightly, still doesn't explain why the lightning gem is doing so low damage. And I´m using a Furnace.

"15% chance on hit to gain a Wreath of Lightning, dealing 860% weapon damage as lightning every second to nearby enemies for 3 seconds." Definitely should be doing 860% per second, or 2580% over 3 seconds, but it's actually not. Even if the damage would split, it still does the same damage to a single target as with multiple. It should be ticking a minimum of 20mil for me, upto 30-35 mil depending on buffs. Well compared to my smite gem at 3000% doing most of the time 80-100mil+ with my Bane of the Powerful up + akarat etc.

Been testing this gem on my crusader, thought it would be a great fit, but noticed something strange.

The gem barely does any damage at all. It's rank 26 for me and is supposed to do 860% damage as lightning every second to enemies for 3 seconds, alright, that sounds like it should be doing good dmg, I mean the smite dmg does 60-100mil, even seen a 120mil crit one with buffs. But my Wreath of Lightning only does 2-4 mil damage? That doesn't sound right, because according to my calculations, it should be doing roughly 20-30 mils depending on my buffs. Where are the missing 20+ mils per tick?

Having to waste 5 keystones to open a rift every time sucks, well when playing solo. So I always had to let people join my game for boss and open for me. Which overall I didn't like much, having to waste all that time then people stay in group sometimes 1-2 mins afterwards slowing me down. Now you can just casually farm bounty bags solo, which is alright if you can do T6 great xp and gold. Then when you've got 10 bags you've recieved 60 keys so you can do 60 rifts. Or you could speedfarm normal and get easy 200 keys and be able to open 200 rifts.

Playing in group just had way to much advantage over solo, 4 people opening. 5 keys every 4 rifts, that's just like having it 1 keystone per rift for solo. So yeah, if you're one of those who were spamming RiF only, you missed out on the game. You're supposed to play the game and get loot, not be in menu and get your gear for free at Kadala and then poof no reason to play.

Is it enough with the Horrify+ToTD+Grave Injustice+Spirit Vessel combo to keep you alive at high torments?

I like the idea, but I think if you miss a Harvest, you are in a dangerous situation...

Actually, I have Homunculus and ToTD, but no serpent.

P.D. Sorry for my English 0:-)

Well, without the 35-40% dmg reduction from zombie dogs+mojo nor unity you wont be doing higher torments. Even with only unity I'd be really squishy on T6. Having the extra 35-40% is huge addition to your unity.

My gear is just a mix of items I've found, I know I have a phys SoJ, haven't bothered wasting more gold trying to reroll fire for my current build, wanna with it till I have a final build and get that specific elemental dmg%.

Been trying to get Jade set from Kadala as well as from farming without success, only managed to get 1 Jade drop so that build is gonna have to wait apparently. Before the patch I tried for pet helm without success, I'm wondering if I should try for Mask of Jeram+taskers and 4p zuni and go for pet build or maybe wait till I have the jade set. And what could I improve meanwhile to maybe move up to T4?

Damn, was so hyped to play barbarians in s3, so many build diversity etc. Guess I might aswell play some other game now. Maybe level WD or something for fun. Blizzard really needs someone with brain on how Diablo 3 classes work, how T6 and High grift content works etc to work for them to design sets and items. Cause they literally have no clue what they're doing. "Hey look at this ability, lets make it do 135613613613 more dmg and then nerf it 25 times during PTR. Really needs internal testing etc before put on PTR.

I hope they add this to EU and US too(well if US isn't getting it too this patch).

Cause if they add this to all regions, they have NO reason to put out no content. And Diablo desperately needs content, we've gotten cool changes but the content stays the same. And we have no challenge outside of greater rifts, you start at normal, then before you notice you're at T6, farming it like you used to farm normal. We need hard content(non grift).

The runewords suggestion is awesome. Maybe it doesn't really have to be that, but something similar, something else to get instead of just gear and slowly leveling legendary gems for end game. Something that makes farming tons of gold, gems etc worth it to make something really cool and powerful, something you wont even get before para 300-400~

I just hope Blizzard starts pointing down what people suggest to make the game a lot better, and making seasons even more fun and different from non-season.

Also since patch is coming "Very Soon™", does that mean they're ending season 1 and starting season 2 earlier? Cause there's still 3 weeks till Season 1 ends, if it's still February 3rd. I really haven't played D3 at all lately, only hopped on PTR for a short while when 2000% leg buff was on and been playing WoW since then, nothing that got me back to play D3, season 1 was crap. Couldn't even do Grifts competitively or challenging(solo) as any class other than DH.

Oh wow, is Transmog that pricey? I'm not saying 50k is hard to get, but i thought it would be just few hundreds or thousands since it's just a cosmetic change instead of a reroll, like enchanting... Oh well, time to cancel the preorder!

50k much? o.O

If this is what would get you to cancel the preorder, then damn you know nothing about Reaper of Souls. Since it cost 500k before and making it 50k now it's a great change. Now I just wish they would make more great changes, especially fix the loot, fix the drops rates, basically fix everything... RoS is gonna be worse then original DIablo 3 imo. People don't even play beta anymore, it must suck really bad if no one plays beta.

No beta like always. Been playing WoW since classic and have gotten no beta invites for Blizzard games since then. Except hearthstone but meh, they sent out like a trillion keys anwyays. Plus it was the only game I did NOT want a beta invite for, cause I don´t wanna play it. Meh, maybe it's because I'm Icelandic? Who knows, neither of my friends have gotten beta invites either for anything from Blizzard. With my luck I might, just might get into beta when it´s 1 week before release. If I'll be that lucky.

Quote from Oranite»
Even though this is kind of a logical fallacy, let's go with the 6-month rule for Blizzard betas. Note that these are just my own predictions and could be definitely be wrong.

Ros Release
RoS beta started last week in mid-november, that indicates a possible 6 months before the release of RoS.

Sometime around May (Most likely May 20th to coincide with the 2-year anniversary of Diablo 3 Vanilla's release, I know that technically May 20th is not the exact date of D3's release, but it's the closest Tuesday).

Patch 2.0(Pre-Expansion Patch)
Now for the pre-expansion patch, Lyrilla started it could happen at anytime, but more likely around the 2-month mark prior to the release of RoS. This make it sounds to happen around mid March which also coincides with around the shutdown of the Auction Houses. So very likely on the March 18th Auction House shut off date.

PTR for Patch 2.0
Obviously there is going to be PTR before Patch 2.0 comes out and it has also been confirmed that there will be one. Typically based on D3's beta history PTR last roughly a month prior to going live, now with a big patch like 2.0 it could very well scale higher then this, maybe even 2 months or more.

Based on my earlier prediction of a mid-march release of Patch 2.0, I would further predict that Patch 2.0 PTR would be out around the 1-2 months mark prior. So this could be anytime in mid-January through mid-February. RoS Beta, Expansion -> closed beta and possibly open beta.
First off, I actually kind of doubt that RoS would ever go open beta, but Blizzard could very well follow D3 vanilla and have an open beta weekend like they did in the past but very unlikely a full blown open beta.

Since RoS beta is already out but only to Friends, Family and Media it is still in the early stages and will eventually go towards a more expanded closed beta, essentially letting more people in who have opt-in via battle.net and later also give away keys for fansites such as Diablofans to give out.

I predict that they will probably start expanding RoS beta around December-January.

I don't think Diablo's beta is gonna last 6 months. It´s not a huge expansion, it's quite small compared to WoW expansion. It brings 1 new act, couple new monsters, loot 2.0 is basically finished, just little tweaks here and there. Paragon 2.0 is finished(atleast almost for sure). Everything else seems to work quite well, sure classes gonna need some balancing but that's not gonna take 6 months. Heck nothing will be 100% before launch. But if it would last 6 months, I'm pretty sure RoS will end up 100% bug free with no OP class builds/legendaries. People would lose interest on Diablo, when you would play beta for 6 months, then start back on live and everything all over again. And those who didn't get into beta will be bored by just watching diablo 3 for 6 months. I think beta will start(the public closed beta not F&F) in first 2 weeks of January, if not before. Patch 2.0.1 will most likely be on PTR around the same time or before. Patch 2.0.1 does not need to be on PTR on 18th march or later, but I'm assuming it will be released on march 18th or week after. So if it would start in early January that's 2 and a half month. Witch I think might be alright, maybe abit more then needed but that's alright. So I assume patch 2.0.1 will be released 1-2 weeks prior to Reaper of Souls. So if the patch will be launched 18th or week after which is more likely, we will probably see expansion either 25th March, 1st April inb4 "We're releasing RoS on 1st April! jk hah April fools joke lolol." or 8th April. Though personally I would like to see Diablo 3 expansion to be released earlier then that, preferably in early March. I guess WoW beta is around the corner and I really cannot spend time playing both at the same time.

Edit: Also if march 18th wasn't the removal of Auction House, I would've guessed 25th February to be the release date for Reaper of Souls and 4th February to be release date for patch. But guess we can't really have Auction House in the next patch/expansion so we can't see it before March 18th

Im very confused why you think the idea about souldbound legendarys is bad, this is the greatest idea i ever heard blizzard announce in ANY diablo game, and im a huuuuuge fan. I could go over 10 very logic reasons why this is good but i will let your simple minds think about this cause i know blizzard staff already figured that out.

Altho i can agree with you about the "2 hours window" with a party, that will mean that it will be SO much better to play as four friends then going alone...Especially for the race at the start. But they already told us they want players to play as a party, but i belive the xp,mf and gold bonus and how it is easier as four different builds/classes already proves that four is the way to go!

Me and my 20 diablo friends this idea!

Best regards Jimmy

Well I can't see this being any good, and yes I have a reason.

Alright so there's tons of legenadry items in the game, you probably wont find all, nor get the specific legendary with some specific stats you want.

I'm rerolling a Crusader in RoS(going to be my main). One of my friends is going to reroll too, if my other 2 friends start again it's likely they might reroll Crusader also.

So 4 crusaders farming in RoS, atleast 1 or 2 of them will most likely be unluckcy with crusader drops, and its most likely gonna be me cause thats just how it works for me, im unlucky.

So obviously there wouldn't be ANY trading whatsoever between us except for our alts, one might go wiz, one DH so we might trade those specific items.

So, at this point, how am I gonna be able to get the items I want? Doesn't look like I am, unless the item has alot greater drop chance then those legendaries today, and rolls most of the time really good. Which then will not make Diablo 3 good, cause if its like console where every other item rolls 1300 dps, sox, 300str 80% critdmg on 1h.... no thanks. I want a game I can play for 2 years and not get bored, not a game I play for 1 week, I'm BIS geared and nothing left to do.

OR if it's gonna be abit of a challange to get items you might have to play 5000 hours to get the gears you want. That is also not fun.
I don't really wanna settle with just any good ring or weapon, I wanna end up using the ring or weapon or any other gear piece that I WANT.

But hope they don't release RoS with soulbound legendaries, it can't be balanced IMO, either its gonna be too hard or too easy(like console).